394 CONNECTICUT EXPERIMENT STATION REPORT, 



severely affected, many having been dying slowly ever since. 

 Besides the trees which are dying, there are many others which 

 are in a very much weakened condition. Numerous oaks which 

 were injured four years ago have died during the past three 

 years, and some of these not yet dead are gradually becoming 

 weaker. * * * Mention has previously been made in our 

 reports of the condition of the red maples, many of which are 

 now gradually dying, and the white and rock maples are suf- 

 fering to a limited extent from the same cause." And in a 

 later Report (23, p. 66) he adds : "The severe winter of 1903-04 

 was not confined to our state, as its work may be seen through- 

 out the whole northeastern section of the United States, and 

 in many instances large orchards were wiped out entirely." 



The so-called pine blight was a trouble very prominent in 

 New England a few years ago, culminating in its damage in 

 1907. At first some investigators, as well as growers, tried 

 to show that this was a fungous trouble, but the investigations 

 of Stone of Massachusetts, Morse of Maine, and of the writer, 

 proved that it was entirely due to unusual seasonal conditions, 

 prominent among which was winter injury. Concerning this 

 trouble, Stone (Report 22, p. 65) writes: "The present pine 

 blight dates back to the winter of 1902-03, when the conditions 

 were such as to cause much injury to vegetation in general. 

 The following winter, 1903-04, was even more severe in its 

 effects on vegetation, and caused extensive root killing of many 

 trees and shrubs. Pine, as well as other trees, in many cases 

 was killed outright, but the injury to the pine was largely con- 

 fined to the small roots or those less than three-sixteenths of 

 an inch in diameter." Morse (Forester's Seventh Rept, Me., 

 p. 24) also says: "Practically all of the so-called pine blight 

 in Maine appeared in 1907 and 1908, and was coincident with 

 tl|e most destructive winter injury to fruit trees known in the 

 state in the last hundred years." 



In the spring of 1907 a late frost killed the immature leaves 

 of the sycamore over a considerable area, as shown by von 

 Schrenk and the writer. It is at this time of the year that 

 the anthracnose fungus begins to be prominent, and the action 

 of the frost was so similar to that of the fungus that several 

 investigators, who apparently were not acquainted with the 

 result of this frost, later laid the trouble entirely to the fungus. 



